


Love through you

by Evil_Keshi



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, F/M, M/M, Memories, Romance, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 03:53:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12313242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evil_Keshi/pseuds/Evil_Keshi
Summary: "I loved him," she said, quiet but still so loud in the silence of this night."I know," Steve murmured, staring at his hands that he had once tangled in Bucky's hair."So did you," Natasha added.





	Love through you

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! It's been a while since I last posted something in the Captain America fandom and here I come with an odd little thing. It was supposed to be longer and based on a [French song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mwleg7yzxU) but I sort of liked the shortness of it as it is now. So, enjoy? :)

  


Bucky is dead. Three words, one fatality, two broken hearts. Steve loved Bucky at seven, when he was fighting five other Brooklyn kids who were trying to steal the bread his mama had asked him to buy, until a sixth child came in and threw punches around instead of going after Steve too. He loved him at fourteen, even when Bucky talked about Sally and Mary and Alice, and many others whose names he forgot. He loved him at sixteen, when his body was trembling under Bucky's touch and mouth, when his friend whispered _do you trust me?_ in his ear. He loved him, always.

Natasha was but a child when she met Bucky for the first time, a time Steve would never fully understand, he who was lying in a frozen coffin. She loved him then, admiring his deadly skills and silent walk. She loved him later, when he was her silent friend, until he became her lover. A lover who, every time, whispered _do you trust me?_ before touching her, careful and tender, as if afraid to hurt or break a body he knew was stronger than it looked.

But Bucky is dead, because Hydra doesn't like to lose prisoners or puppets, not alive. And Bucky, even as memories of nights in Brooklyn and Moscow became clearer, weakened day after day because of the hidden poison that flowed in his veins, one that even he didn't notice before it was too late.

Three times in his life, Steve regretted that he couldn't get drunk anymore. Once after Bucky fell from the train, once after he woke up in a new world and realised that Bucky would never get to see it (because of him, because he hadn't caught his hand, because he had _failed_ his best guy) and once after Bucky died with a smile on his lips, each one of his hands held tightly by Natasha and Steve.

He was drinking now, bottle after bottle, never feeling the blessing of oblivion he would have welcomed, never thinking beyond Bucky's last smile. Natasha found him, silently entering the room to take the bottle from his hand, and she drank with him. Then she turned to Steve, a hint of desperation as the only crack in her steel eyes.

"I loved him," she said, quiet but still so loud in the silence of this night.

"I know," Steve murmured, staring at his hands that he had once tangled in Bucky's hair.

"So did you," Natasha added.

She rose to her feet, her fingers gripping the empty bottle of vodka like a buoy, and she came to sit on Steve's lap. She lifted her free hand and traced the red rim of his eyes, collecting echoes of tears on her fingertips.

"He loved us," she said.

Then she was kissing him, her lips searching traces of Bucky on Steve's mouth, fingers threading through hair that she saw a dark chocolate instead of a sunny blond. And Steve... Steve started to kiss her back. She used to be like this with Bucky at a time when it wasn't his name, when he didn't have one; she had known him when Steve couldn't be there and... Had she moved like this, above him ? Had she trailed her fingers down his chest like she was doing with him right now ?

Bucky used to love that... So Steve arched his back, his body reacting the way Bucky would have even as his mind didn't understand what they were both doing.

"Natasha..." he whispered at last, his hand cupping her face in a half-hearted attempt at pushing her away.

"Shhh," she hushed him. "Do you trust me ?"

Steve broke. Those words sent him back to earlier and happier times, to a tiny apartment in Brooklyn and sunbeams shining through the window, illuminating two entwined bodies on a bed, one muscular and the other skinny, sharing their love through the most ancient dance known to mankind. Making love.

"I do," he replied, maybe to Natasha, or maybe to Bucky's ghost.

  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading until the end! Feel free to share your thoughts on this, I'd like to know what you thought about this short story :)


End file.
